Warning: This work has been rated 18+ for language and violence.
Chapter 1
"Ahhhhh," the man cried out. They had been torturing him for three days straight now with no luck other than a few random words about a dog.
"Goddammit Asaad do you want to die!?" yelled Charlie Warner, the Lieutenant in charge of interrogation.
"Back off Charlie he's not giving us shit," said Will Rider "but maybe he just needs a little more motivation" Rider pulled out a picture of a smiling, happy, Arabic family and Asaad began to visibly shake.
"لا، لا، من فضلك! لا عائلتي! أنا أحب زوجتي وأطفالي!" Asaad said in rapid-fire Arabic.
"He's saying something about his family, how much he loves his wife," said the on-site translator Jack Wallace. Rider snapped. He bolted over to Asaad and landed a hard right hook straight across the man's face.
"You love your wife!? We all have families too! We all have people we love! But we can't get back home to them if we get blown up by a fucking IED!" Rider added another left hook just to spite him then walked away, profusely sweating. After taking a long walk around the compound Warner approached him.
"Will you can't do that shit in there. You gotta control yourself"
"Shit, Charlie I know I just can't help it. This asshole who killed 20 innocent civlians with a homemade pipe bomb got to go home every night to a wife and kids! It's just not fair."
"It's about Hannah isn't it?"
Will didn't respond. He knew Charlie was right. Of course it was about Hannah. Everything was about Hannah.
*
Everything just felt so different after 9/11 to Will Rider. He was no longer just an 18 year old kid lazily getting through his senior year and the college admission process. After seeing how close to his Delaware home the terrorists hit, he didn't want to just sit idly by anymore. So one day, without telling his parents, he skipped school and went to the Army recruitment center and signed up for war.
People close to Will had mixed reactions. His father, a stern, proud man who always was antagonistic with his son, respected and almost admired the decision. His mother, a loving woman who still babied Will like he was a toddler, wept for days, but eventually came to terms. The hardest was Hannah. They met freshman year at a carnival when Will and one of his other immature friends decided to play a prank on her and her friends by jumping in the back of one of their pictures. The friends realized and giggled but there was just a certain connection between the two. It was a fairytale romance. They dated ever since then and were easily the most recognizable couple, and they were truly in love. When Will had to tell her he was leaving for Iraq, and may never return, she was shocked. It was the most difficult goodbye he had ever made. Every single morning she was the first thing he thought about when he woke up, and the last before he fell asleep at night. When the roadside IED nearly destroyed his entire caravan, his first thought was never seeing Hannah again. He knew his tour of duty was up as soon as this mission was completed, but he needed Asaad to talk otherwise there was no mission. The Ghost. Kareem al-Arib. The greatest sniper in the history of the world. Dead or alive. Rumors circled around the city that Asaad was his last known contact, who provided him with his current mission information, but was as tight lipped as a mob boss. They had nothing to go on, yet their task was to still take down the man who would simply disappear without a trace, then pop back up to take a mile long shot across a river into a cross wind and nail an important political figure right in the head, and never get caught. The Ghost.
"One more fucking shot Charlie, that's all I'm asking for. I think I've got something." Rider said.
"I can't. Not with the way you lost it in there earlier! You pull some shit like that again, Asaad is dead and al-Arib is gone."
"Charlie. Trust me. That is over and will never happen again. 5 minutes that's all I'm asking for."
"5 minutes Rider not a second more."
Will entered the tent for what he hoped would be the final time. His prisoner was handcuffed to the table, soaked in sweat, dirty, and bloody. Vulnerable. Just the way Rider needed him.
"Hey buddy. Sorry about that little incident earlier. How ya holding up?"
"Fuck you."
"Alrighty then. Today instead of begging you for information, I've got a little something I wanna share. I talked to our undercover guy in town, and he agreed to spread a little rumor for me. Now al-Qaeda doesn't like snitches do they?"
Asaad stared at him blankly, "I haven't told you anything."
"The people outside don't know that! What they do know is that we captured you and you told us everything. We did this little move with ari-Shahad back in '03, and do you wanna know what they did? They kidnapped his kids, and mailed them limb by limb to their mother before setting fire to her home and killing her."
"Please. Please leave my family out of this" said Asaad, broken and bloody
"Hey I'll tell my guy it was bad info in a heartbeat if you just tell me The Ghost's next move."
Asaad paused and took a deep breath, "You swear my family will be safe?"
"Of course"
"June 3rd. 5:17 PM. Islamabad Serena Hotel."
*
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,020 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hey, jakeblewitt98!
First of all, great piece. You've got some great emotional parts to this story, but maybe I connect a bit because I'm a military brat. I know what it's like to miss your family overseas and worry about what's going on. Family is definitely an important aspect - good way to hit home for both the protagonist and antagonist.
Next, I see a few dialogue lines that are in need of some punctuation. I would maybe change them to look like so:
"Goddammit, Asaad, do you want to die?" yelled Charlie Warner, the Lieutenant in charge of interrogation.
"Back off, Charlie. He's not giving us shit," said Will Rider, "but maybe he just needs a little more motivation." Rider pulled out a picture of a smiling, happy, Arabic family and Asaad began to visibly shake.
It's definitely important to put comma's around character names. As the famous example goes, "Let's eat, Grandma!" is way different than "Let's eat Grandma!"
Also, there were a few other lines as well that were missing some punctuation, so I would just make sure to walk-through your story again and take a look for that.
Again, great job! Keep on writing and being awesome!
~ Mira
Hello, just going to do a little Review here. I honestly liked this story so far, I personally don't read a lot military/war based story's on here but you've really hooked me in right now. I like how you you started right off into the action with this.
Now then some of the nitpicks that I was some of the word placements. For example the first few words in the second sentence. "They have been" doesn't really sound very nice when reading it. "They've been torturing him for three days straight now" sounds a bit better.
Now the intro to the characters seemed a bit weird to me. They just there, just boom, boom, boom right after another. It just seems like a lot to remember right off the bat. I mean it's four characters already in the first chapter not including Hannah and ghost. I mean this is really just a personal thing, introducing this number of characters in the first chapter is a bit much. I don't know if you'll be adding more characters as the story goes on so this whole little paragraph may be just redundant.
Also the title. It looks like your new to website so this may be a mistake. Or you just named your story just chapter 1 which is kind of odd. If it's just a mistake could you tell me the title of your story.
Keep writing, it's good